Reddit reviews Batman: The Dark Knight Returns

Frank Millers Dark Knight Returns

I don't read a lot of action-y graphic novels, so I can't really help you with finding more stuff like Watchmen, Wanted, etc. (However, you have to promise me you'll read Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns.)

But I can recommend more laid-back graphic novels if you're ever in the mood for something different! Give American Born Chinese, Anya's Ghost, or Daytripper a shot sometime.

Persepolis and Maus are also graphic novel must reads, no matter what genre you usually favor. And Scott Pilgrim was super popular recently, with great cause.

And, if you're willing to settle down for a long haul and read your comics backwards, I really can't recommend Fullmetal Alchemist enough. 27 volumes, but it's the best action series I've ever read and one of my all-time favorites of any sort of media. Check out a stack of it from the library and you'll fly right through it. That's what I did one afternoon, and my time has never been better spent.

Edit: More suggestions, typos.

Well, I'm not certain that I could recommend other novels outside of the Batman mythos, but there are a couple of Batman graphic novels that explore the same concepts and thoughts of being Batman as does The Dark Knight Rises. Most of these are either graphic novels or trade paperbacks. Trade paperbacks (TPBs) are collections of a series of comics that would come out weekly all bundled into one nice thick book. Graphic novels were not published as comics, but as books themselves.

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns -
This series has Batman returning to Gotham after 10 years of absence. It's critically acclaimed and generally hailed as one of, if not the, best Batman TPB/graphic-novel.

Knightfall (Part One | Part Two | Part Three) This TPB is all about Bane and Batman. It details Bane's origins, his rise, the moment where he breaks Batman's back, Bruce's recovery, and all the chaos that ensues. Three massive volumes of about 600 pages each, this will take you a while to pour through, but it is one hell of a ride.

No Man's Land - (Volume One | Volume Two | Volume Three | Volume Four - not released yet | Volume Five - not released yet) - This massive Batman event has Gotham going through a cataclysmic earthquake which labels it as a federal disaster area. With no law and total anarchy, the rules of Gotham change and the role of Batman transforms. The second half of TDKR is pretty much this, except this comic series explores the concept much further. Seriously, all in all, this is about 1500 pages of pure Batman. And I'll be damned if these aren't just about the best 1500 pages of Batman out there.

These are all the comics I can think of that are related to TDKR. If you're interested in the books that inspired TDK or Batman Begins, I recommend The Long Halloween, Dark Victory, The Killing Joke, Birth of the Demon, and Batman: Year One.

Hope I helped!

• The Dark Knight draws heavily from The Long Halloween and plenty of the Joker's lines are taken straight out of a prose issue collected here. There's also the obvious influence of The Killing Joke and The Man Who Laughs. The Killing Joke was also the primary influence on Tim Burton's Batman.
  
  
• Batman Begins draws from a number of stories include Year One, Blind Justice and The Man Who Falls which is collected here.
  
  
• Captain America: The Winter Soldier was based on the fairly recent Ed Brubaker run which is phenomenal.
  
  
• The Dark Knight Rises combines elements of Knightfall, No Man's Land and The Dark Knight Returns. The Dark Knight Returns is also a major influence on the upcoming Batman V Superman.
  
  
• The Avengers mainly draws from the original first issue of The Avengers, which is collected here and retold again here in a modern setting, as well as The Ultimates. There are plenty of shots that feel like they were lifted right out of The Ultimates. On a side note, Joss also wrote the introduction to the book years ago and it was through doing this that he figured out exactly why the Avengers work.
  
  
• The X-Men movies tend to draw more from the 80's, especially Chris Claremont's run. X-Men 2 draws heavily from Gods Loves, Man Kills. X-Men 3 is loosely based off of The Dark Phoenix Saga as well as Joss Whedon's relatively recent Astonishing X-Men. The Wolverine draws from Chris Claremont and Frank Miller's [Wolverine mini-series] and Days of Future Past is based on, you guessed it, Day of Future Past. Even though X-Men: First Class takes it's name from the comic of the same name it has more in common with the early Stan Lee stuff. X-Men Origins: Wolverine draws from several comics include Wolverine's Origin mini-series and Weapon X. The first X-Men movie isn't really based off any particular arc although it did heavily influence Ultimate X-Men.
  
  
• The upcoming Daredevil TV series seems to be drawing heavily from Frank Miller's run, particularly his origin story The Man Without Fear. While Miller's main run took place in the late 70's/early 80's The Man Without Fear came out in the 90's.
  
  
• Guardians of the Galaxy takes its line-up from the 2004 series but the plot of the movie is all its own.
  
  
• Avenger: Age of Ultron seems to be an original story that's taking it's cues, at least in part, from Ultron Unlimited which is collected here.
  
  
• Man of Steel was heavily influenced by John Byrne's 80's reboot although its structure is heavily modelled on the 2010 graphic novel Earth One. There are also bits and pieces taken from Birthright, Secret Origin and All-Star Superman.
  
  
• Iron Man 3 certainly takes its cues from Extremis but a lot of it is just pure Shane Black. The first Iron Man isn't based on a particular storyline but Tony's origin stuff in Afghanistan is almost identical to the flashbacks in Extremis that revamp Tony's origin for a modern context. Iron Man 2 borrows a little from Demon in a Bottle and Armor Wars but ultimately does its own thing.
  
  
• The writer of the Fantastical Four reboot has mentioned that they've been influenced by Ultimate Fantastic Four.
  
  
• Ant-Man follows an original story but is primarily influenced by the Scott Lang Ant-Man books from the late 70's/early 80's.
  
  
• The Thor movies aren't based on any particular storyline but they are vaguely influenced by Walter Simon's run as well as J. Michael Straczynski's run
  
  
• Green Lantern draws heavily from Geoff John's run, especially his near-perfect origin story Secret Origin
  
  
• AKA Jessica Jones is based on the incredible Alias.
  
  EDIT: Formatting

Well, my favorites are

The Moviegoer

The Road

A Confederacy of Dunces

Rendezvous with Rama

Watchmen

Snow Crash

Slaughterhouse-Five

Cat's Cradle

The Big Sleep

The Maltese Falcon

American Gods

A Clockwork Orange

Preacher

Fahrenheit 451

1984

Akira

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Lolita

Love in the Time of Cholera

Naked Lunch

Animal Farm

The Sandman

At the Mountains of Madness

The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Tales

The Picture of Dorian Gray

Brave New World

We

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns

I'm going to list what I think are important, or perhaps emblematic, Batman graphic novels with links to their wiki amazon page, because the wiki pages were surprisingly unhelpful, so you can check them out. Hopefully you find something that interests you.

The Dark Knight Returns: The book that revitalized the genre in the 80s. An important Batman read; however, I think there are better reads.

Year One: Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy borrows from Year One, and a lot of others I've listed, in some pretty cool ways. As the title suggests this comic tells the story of the beginning of Bruce Wayne's career as Batman.

The Killing Joke: The quintessential Joker story told by one of the most important men in comics, Alan Moore. The story is short, especially for a graphic novel, but fantastic.

The Long Halloween: One of my personal favorites. TLH highlights Batman's detective roots following him on a year long hunt for a serial killer. Much of the rouge gallery makes an appearance and the murder mystery elements are classic Batman at his best.

Hush: A good example of a newer Batman comic; it was first published serially during 2002 and 2003. Very good read, definitely take a look.

Arkham Asylum: A newer comic that I have yet to read but thought I would add it to the list because it usually comes up in conversations like this one. I'm hoping to read it soon.

Kommt natürlich auch auf den Autor an.

Wenn du mal was gutes mit Superhelden ausprobieren willst, die Klassiker sind dies nicht umsonst:

• Watchmen von Alan Moore und Dave Gibbons
  
  
• Die Dark Knight Reihe von Frank Miller
  
  
• Natürlich Kick-Ass von Mark Millar und sehr empfehlenswert auch:
  
• Die X-Men-Reihe von Joss Whedon :)
  
  Würd sie auf englisch empfehlen, aber grad Watchmen kann da schon schwierig werden, ist halt keine Klo-Lektüre a la Lustiges Taschenbuch :D
  
  Edit: Formaten

Agreed on everything. But for the sake of walter7mm (who seems to be a newbie comic book reader), here is links to the amazon product page for each suggestion:

• Arkham Asylum
  
• Hush
  
• The Killing Joke
  
• The Long Halloween
  
• The Dark Knight Returns
  
• Year One (per defenestr8's suggestion)

Batman: The Long Halloween was/is my favorite so far.

Many people suggest Batman: The Dark Knight Returns as amazing. I thought It was ok; the (dated) art style kept taking me out of the story

I think the best thing to do for now would be to ween into comics. I'd start off with graphic novels so you don't have to follow too deeply into a series. Start off reading something like The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller, or Watchmen by Alan Moore. Get a feel of it before you start off. Once you read a couple of novels, I'd look into getting some trade paperbacks of some series. The Walking Dead has been a really good series; it isn't just a plain zombie story...it's more about the human side of the standard zombie tale, such as how they survive, how they interact with each other, etc. Another good TPB to get into would be The Sandman which has some of the coolest artwork and storytelling I've seen. After you start catching up with some TPB's, THEN I'd look into single issues, starting with the first issue of an arch (it will say something like Part 1, Part 1 of 6, etc.). The comic book shop guys are usually pretty cool dudes and can help you find a good arch thats currently going on. Also, places like Half Price Books usually have TPB's for cheaper, but that depends on if you're okay with buying from a secondhand place instead of a small business (I like to go about half and half on purchases, just to save money and to help keep the small guy in the game). Hope this helps!

Piratebay? I would recommend buying the comic, though.

I think we owe Frank Miller a huge thank you because it was him who gave the caped crusader his darker persona we all love. I've read Year One several times, also recommend this for your collection.

http://www.amazon.com/Batman-The-Dark-Knight-Returns/dp/1563893428/ref=cm_lmf_tit_3

you guys should read the dark knight returns... Batman and Superman get into a pretty awesome battle

If you're wondering, The Dark Knight Returns

Son, you've got some catching up to do.

Batman has been published non-stop since 1939, so yes, it is still being published, and there is a lot of it. As to reading most, you have tens of thousands of comics to read (if not more) so it is unlikely that you will be able to read all of the Batman comics. That reading list on the side is comprised of above average graphic novels (which are generally a "run" of comics that tell a self contained story, where as if you buy a single comic on its own it likely will not make sense because it will likely be in the middle of a story arc). So I recommend buying graphic novels because they are a self contained story, meaning that you don't need other comics to understand the plot. All of the ones on the side there are really great, but there are so many other great graphic novels, for instance, you mentioned that you liked the game Arkham Asylum, which was loosely based on the graphic novel of the same name. If you really want to try to read all the Batman stories in order I recommend The Batman Chronicles which is a republication of every Batman comic in order of publication, but you should really read some other graphic novels first because The Batman Chronicles starts with the 1939 comics, and the Batman mythos have changed a lot since then, also, because there are so many comics The Batman Chronicles are expensive, so far 10 volumes have been released and they have only gotten to 1943, so it will be many volumes before they reach some of the best Batman stories. I hope I helped and feel free to ask me any questions you may have. Also, I recommend the graphic novels Year One, The Dark Knight Returns, The Killing Joke, Hush, and The Long Halloween.

Hey buddy. Just fyi, r/comicbooks will be the last place that says your strange and or weird for liking comics, dive deep into em for goodness sake! I'm 26 and I started collecting at around 21 myself. It's been nothing but a pleasure and I'm glad I got myself into the world of comics. I sincerely understand why you have that concern but you should ask yourself this, while we're experiencing the medium of comics surge in popularity like never before, isn't now a better time than ever to unashamedly dive into it?

Physical books are absolutely still strong in the medium and are showing no signs of losing their relevance in the market.

I would suggest you start with these two books for a broad first look into the big two publishers Marvel and DC.

https://www.amazon.com/Infinity-Gauntlet-Jim-Starlin/dp/0785156593

This storyline is what the entire series of Marvel films has been leading into. It features a vast array of characters in a plot that's easy to follow and requires only a very basic knowledge of Marvel's roster of characters to get to grips with it.

https://www.amazon.com/Batman-Dark-Knight-Returns-TP/dp/1563893428

This book is widely regarded as one of the best if not the best Batman story. I couldn't recommend this book highly enough.

If you have specific characters in mind that you want to explore, try the search bar in this sub for previous posts asking about them.

Get DMZ by Brian Wood. It's about life in Manhattan (which is now the DeMilitarized Zone) after the US drops into civil war. It follows Matty Roth, a journalist intern who quickly becomes pro when he gets trapped on the island. I recommend the trade paperbacks, of which there are currently seven.

Also the Ghost in the Shell trade paperbacks, and The Dark Knight Returns trade paperback.

Yes, and it was awesome
http://www.amazon.com/Batman-Knight-Returns-Frank-Miller/dp/1563893428/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1319065665&sr=8-1

Good choice.
I'd also recommend (in no particular order):

• [Year One] (http://www.amazon.com/Batman-Year-One-Frank-Miller/dp/1401207529/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1405986279&sr=8-1&keywords=batman+year+one)
  
• Joker
  
• Arkham Asylum
  
• The Dark Knight Returns
  
• The Killing Joke
  
• Knightfall
  
• The Long Halloween
  
• No Man's Land
  
  Aaand...that's it...those are all the Batman comics I've read. *sob*

You can find used copies of a lot of the classics for cheap on amazon.

Like this: frank millers batman for under $5 or Alan Moores Swamp Thing for $7.50

The closest thing on my WL is 12.98. Lucky 13

Thanks for the contest! You're swell, sir.

Yes, it's Oliver Queen.

These animated films are based on Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again, both by Frank Miller. The second book goes into more detail about what happened with Superman and Green Arrow.

Hello and I'm glad to see you're showing interest in comics. Let me be the first to say that I'm not some seasoned veteran with limitless knowledge of the "ins" and "outs" regarding to comics. The first time I picked up a DC Comic and read it was a 2 years ago, I picked up Batman Under The Red Hood. Why? I had seen the animated movie and LOVED it. I wanted to see what the graphic novel had to offer. At the time I didn't have access to comics and that was the only DC Comic I read. A year ago, I was on vacation in NYC and I picked up Justice League Vol. 1 Origins. Why? I was browsing through the store for something to jump out at me. I had no idea who Geoff Johns or Jim Lee was. At the time I didn't care, I just wanted to pick up a book, read it, and enjoy it. When I picked up Justice League Vol. 1, I was like "OH SHIIIIIIII", I felt like I had been transported into another reality. Reading about Green Lantern meeting Batman for the first time, it was great.

Then this past year I went to my first Comic Con. DC was pushing a lot of comics and they had all these artists and writers and panels, but I had no idea who these people were or why they were important. I remember sitting there at the Batman panel and they showed a slide of Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, as they were describing the story behind and what Bruce was going through, I was thinking, "I need to read this."
After NYCC was over I went to my local comic book store and picked up TDKR, and fucking LOVED it. It's not New 52. It's not new, it's older. But here's the thing. It's fucking awesome. Go buy it and read it and you'll see.


I'm just going to cut this short and say, there isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to read comics. Just go to the store, and see what jumps out at you. I mean, who cares if you happen to like the current Batgirl, while I may hate it. You are paying for the comic and if you enjoy it, why does it matter if it's "right" or "wrong"?

If you're lost, I'm sure you can find some help from everyone on here, the staff at your local comic store, can surely help if you just take the mindset of, "Hey I'm new can you at least point in me in some sort of direction for starting out?"
That's all I have to say about that. Good luck and hope you enjoy your time in comics (whether it be DC, Marvel, Dark Horse, etc)

If I had to supply a "here's a good place to start list", I'd say start with the following.

-Batman [Court of Owls] (http://www.amazon.com/Batman-Vol-Court-Owls-New/dp/1401235425/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422342173&sr=8-1&keywords=batman+court+of+owls)

-Batgirl [Darkest Reflection] (http://www.amazon.com/Batgirl-Vol-Darkest-Reflection-New/dp/1401238149/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422342206&sr=8-1&keywords=batgirl+vol+1)

-The Flash [Move Forward] (http://www.amazon.com/Flash-Vol-Move-Forward-New/dp/1401235549/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422342234&sr=8-1&keywords=flash+move+forward)
This isn't New 52 but it's still good [The Dark Knight Returns] (http://www.amazon.com/Batman-Knight-Returns-Frank-Miller/dp/1563893428/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422342259&sr=8-1&keywords=frank+miller+the+dark+knight+returns&pebp=1422342259313&peasin=1563893428)

I'm actually not sure, I've never really read it myself, haha! It's this one.

Edit: From reading the Amazon comments, I believe it is the four-part edition.

To understand the mindset of this Batman you really have to read The Dark Knight Returns.

They really should've cut something out and taken the time to spell out batman's motivations to the viewers since so many people didn't get them.

Batman year one, TDKR, and the most recent version TDKR is collected with a couple of other stories.

I understand why you are weary to ask for specific books, but there are some books that are important to the marvel universe or comics in general which would be pretty safe bets.

For Instance:

• Marvels, which is the history of the marvel universe through the eyes of a reporter for the Daily Bugel. Shows events from the Namor and the original Human Torch, to Captain America, to the X-Men, to Spiderman, to Galactus. Really cool depiction of the marvel universe.
  
• The Infinity Gauntlet, Thanos tries to take over the universe. Very well recieved event that the 3rd and 4th Avengers movies will be "based" on.
  
• Secret Wars, much older than the other books so much campier style, but it was (I believe) the first big crossover book from any publisher. Its also where spiderman gets the black suit that turns into venom and great moments throughout.
  
• Annihilation (All three books), Was a relaunch of Marvel's Cosmic line and sets up for all of the cosmic books for many years to come. Very cool book. Can read with no prior knowledge whatsoever.
  
• Watchmen, Good book, very important to the comic medium itself. Published by DC but not set in that universe.
  
• The Dark Knight Returns, Again published by DC but very important to Batman and comics in general. And who doesn't love Batman.
  
• Any charcter has at least one trade that is good standalone and is important to the character, but without knowing your preferences I can't recommend specifics
  
  Even if these arn't your absolute favorite books, they are relevant to the history and there is a pretty high chance that you will want to read them at some point.

Ok look at this and this

That's the right one yeah. But like I said, it's not as easy a read as say...Batman Hush. It's not bad again, it's just kinda old.

And yeah I'm like you too. I've only recently started reading comic books. Which have you read? 8]

edit: This is the graphic novel

And this is the animated movie

They also made the movie split into two parts that I felt was better than that deluxe edition that combines them into one movie.

Part 1

Part 2

BTW, what do you think of this Batman cover?

> I on't know about him but I personally can't commit to longer storylines because I think life is too short to stick with a single story for weeks or months, when you can come up with something new every other day.

I appreciate your honest comment, but I can't help but think that some - of - the - best - stories simply need a longer effort to be narrated, or you're stuck in a much more shallow world of storytelling

If they were going to fast-forward a few decades and do it The Dark Knight Returns style (which they won't), I would have to choose Kurt Russell to play the caped crusader.